| dc.description.transcription | 5 Church Terrace Pancrass London
October 3. 1814.
My dear Friend
After a silence of some months I hasten to communicate to you the events of the interval. They will surprise, & if any degree of our ancient affection is yet cherished by you for a being apparently so inconsistent & indisciplinable as me, will probably delight you. You will rejoice that after struggles & privations which almost withered me to idiotism, I enjoy an happiness the most perfect & exalted that it is possible for my nature to participate. That I am restored to energy and enterprise, that I have become again what I once promised to become . . that my friendship will no longer be an enigma to my friend, you will rejoice . . if the causes that produced my errors have not made you indifferent to their reformation, & my restoration to peace liberty & virtue.
As soon as I returned from the continent, (for I have travelled thro’ France, Switzerland, Germany & Holland) I sought you to communicate what [p.2] I will now detail.
In the beginning [deleted] beginning of spring, I spent two months at Mrs. Boinville’s without my wife. If I expect the succeeding period these two months were probably the happiest of my life: the calmest the serenest the most free from care. The contemplation of female excellence is the favorite food of my imagination. Here was ample scope for admiration: novelty added a peculiar charm to the intrinsic merit of the objects: I had been unaccustomed to the mildness the intelligence the delicacy of a cultivated female. The presence of Mrs. Boinville & her daughter afforded a strange contrast to my own [deleted] former friendless & deplorable condition. I suddenly perceived that the entire devotion with which I had resigned all prospects of utility or happiness to the single purpose of cultivating Harriet was a gross & despicable superstition. –Perhaps every degree of affectionate intimacy with a female, however slight, partakes of the nature of love. Love makes men quicksighted, & is only called blind by the multitude because he perceives the existence of relations invisible to grosser optics. I saw [p. 3] the full extent of the calamity which my rash & heartless union with Harriet: an union over whose entrance might justly be ins[s]cribbed
Lasciate ogni Speranza voi ch’entrate!
had produced. I felt as if a dead & living body had been linked together in loathsome & horrible communion. It was no longer possible to practice self deception: I believed that one revolting duty yet remained. To continue to deceive my wife. – I wandered in the fields alone. The season was most beautiful. The evenings were so serene & mild – I never had before felt so intensely the subduing voluptuousness of the impulses of spring. Manifestations of my approaching change tinged my waking thoughts, & afforded inexhaustible subject for the visions of my sleep. I recollect that one day I undertook to walk from Bracknell to my father’s, (40 miles). A train of visionary events arranged themselves in my imagination until ideas almost acquired the intensity of sensations. Already I had met the female who was destined to be mine, already had she replied to my exulting recognition, already were the difficulties surmounted that opposed [p. 4] an entire union. I had even proceeded so far as to compose a letter to Harriet on the subject of my passion for another. Thus was my walk beguiled, at the conclusion of which I was hardly sensible of fatigue.—
in the month of June I came to London that I might [these three words deleted] to accomplish some business with Godwin that had been long depending. The circumstances of the case required an almost constant residence at his house. Here I met his daughter Mary. The originality & loveliness of Mary’s character was apparent to me from her very motions & tones of voice. The irresi[s]tible wildness & sublimity of her feelings shewed itself in her gestures and her looks – Her smile, how persuasive it was & how pathetic! She is gentle, to be convinced & tender; yet not incapable of ardent indignation & hatred. I do not think that there is an excellence at which human nature can arrive, that she does not indisputably possess, or of which her character does not afford manifest intimations.
[p. 5] I speak thus of Mary now . . & so intimately are our natures now united, that I feel whilst I describe her excellencies as if I were an egotist expatiating upon his own perfections – Then, how deeply did I not feel my inferiority, how willingly confess myself far surpassed in originality, in genuine elevation & magnificence of the intellectual nature until she consented to share her capabilities with me. [2-inch space] I speedily conceived an ardent passion to posess this inestimable treasure. In my own mind this feeling assumed a variety of shapes. I disguised from myself the true nature of my affection. I endeavored also to conceal it from Mary: but without success. I was vaccilating & infirm of purpose: I shuddered to transgress a real duty, & could not in this instance perceive the boundaries by which virtue was separated from madness, where self devotion becomes the very prodigality of idiotism. Her understanding was made clear by a spirit that sees into the truth of things, & affections preserved pure & sacred from the corrupting contamination of vulgar superstitions. No expressions can [p.6] convey the remotest conception of the manner in which she dispelled my delusions. The sublime & rapturous moment when she confessed herself mine, who had so long been her’s in secret, cannot be painted to mortal imaginations – Let it suffice to you, who are my friend to know & to rejoice that she is mine: that at length I possess the inalienable treasure, that I sought & that I have found. –
Tho’ striktly [sic] watched, & regarded with a suspicious eye, opportunities of frequent intercourse were not wanting. – When we meet, I will give you a more explicity detail of the progress of our intercourse: How in opposition to her fathers will, to Harriets exertions we still continued to meet. --. How Her [deleted] Godwin’s distress induced us to prolong the period of our departure. How the cruelty & injustice with which we were treated, impelled us to disregard, all consideration but that of the happiness of each other.
We left England & proceeded to Switzerland & returned thro Germany & Holland. Two months [p. 7] have passed since this new state of being commenced. How wonderfully I am changed! Not a disembodied spirit can have undergone a stranger revolution! I never knew until now that contentment & [deleted] was any thing but a word denoting an unmeaning abstraction. I never before felt the integrity of my nature, its several [deleted] various dependencies, & learned to consider myself as an whole accurately united rather than an assemblage of inconsistent & discordant portions. Above all, most sensibly do I perceive the truth of my entire worthlessness but as depending on another. And I a[m] deeply persuaded that thus ennobled, [I shall] become a more true & constant friend, a more useful lover of mankind, a more ardent asserter of truth & virtue . . . above all more consistent, more intelligible more true. –
My dear friend I entreat you to write to me soon. Even in this pure & celestial felicity I am not contented until I hear from you.
Most affectionately yours
P B Shelley | |
